An ambitious first paddle of 2011

It's May, and this was sadly the first time Big Purple has touched H20 since... November? How sad. I guess that's what's necessary when you chose not to work on your masters of engineering project for the majority of the year. Yesterday was my final presentation, so now there are many paddling trips in the works (in my mind...).

Anyways, Rob and I met up at East Shore Park at 8 am. We were on the water by 8:10 am, paddling North along the familiar east shore of Cayuga. Although my project had me out on the lake in a motor boat many times this spring, it's just so much better in a kayak! :)

Soooo.... I got a new computer, and I've been converted to Mac, so I'm playing with the fun picture settings :)

As we were passing Bolton Point (a little over 2 miles up the lake), we decided to aim for Myers Point. It was a slightly ambitious goal since Rob had to back at COE for a meeting at noon, but we were keeping a good pace, so we went for it anyway. Ten minutes later, the wind naturally started to pick up from the South. This helped push us along to Myers Point, but it certainly made the paddle back feel like a kayaking treadmill.

Nice lighting on Salmon Creek

Around the point the lake was completely calm, and we went for a short exploratory paddle up Salmon Creek, which runs along the northern side of Myers Park. Rob spotted a very cute family of Mergansers:

The paddle back felt very long (it took about 45 minutes longer than the paddle out!), but we managed to make it back by 11:45 am.

Date: Friday May 13th, 2011
Time: 3.5 hrs
Distance: 12.3 miles!

On the radar for the near future: a day paddle on Skaneateles Lake, a sunset paddle from Long Point on Cayuga Lake, and a day paddle on the northern end of Cayuga Lake by the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Seneca Falls.